(Newser)
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During the 10 years he spent in federal prison for manufacturing cocaine, Bryant Collins "made a very conscientious effort to change" his life, he says. And five years after getting out, he's officially a hero: On Friday, he noticed a baby on the side of a Georgia highway. "I had seen something out of the corner of my eye, and I thought it was a baby," Collins tells WXIA. "I just stopped and, when I got out, there was a baby." He picked up the 15-month-old girl and called 911.

She was basically fine—"Honestly that's almost a miracle: that a 15-month-old can go that far from her house, into the woods, fall down an embankment, wind up near a major highway, and really not get hurt that bad," says the Madison County sheriff—and Collins stayed with her for two hours, soothing her when she cried. "I turned my phone on and let her listen to some gospel music, and she calmed right down," he says. Her father was arrested after arriving at the scene and "scuffling" with police, NBC News reports; her mother may be arrested on neglect charges as well. They tell WXIA they had left little Emily inside in the care of older siblings while they were in the backyard, and say they called 911 when they realized she wandered off.

I am so glad this isn't the first report I read about concerning what happen to this baby. The first reporter focused on the baby and how he found the child. The writer, on the other hand, found it necessary to title and start their article focusing on this man's past. Even though he mentioned his past mistakes, it's not necessary to title a story that brings to light his past. The point is that a young child was saved from being seriously harmed or killed due to the carelessness of someone else. I doesn't matter if he had a checkered past or was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He's turning his life around, and I congratulate him for doing so. He was at the right place at the right time.

Carol D Briggs

Jun 19, 2014 2:48 PM CDT

Why does he have to still be identified as an ex con, even in the title of the piece? The real criminal here is the mother who lost track of her 15-month child to the point where a stranger had to keep it safe. She didn't have to be lucky enough for this man to save her child; some nut or pervert could have stepped in first.